Healthy Planet, Better World - Bringing the health community together to address our global ecological crises

9-10th December 2016

Friends House, 173-177 Euston Road, London, NW1 2BJ

Human health is dependent on a healthy environment. Yet we are damaging ecosystems and depleting natural resources in ways that undermine our ability to sustain healthy and equitable societies.

Climate change, desertification, ocean acidification and biodiversity loss are among many ecological threats to health. These impact on health via multiple pathways that include reducing food and water security, altering disease patterns, increasing the frequency of extreme weather events, and multiplying the risk of conflict.

The threats posed by climate change and wider environmental degradation are serious. According to a Lancet-UCL Commission, climate change could be “sufficient to trigger a discontinuity in the long-term progression of humanity”. Indeed, on the basis of current emission trajectories, “temperature rises in the next 85 years may be incompatible with an organised global community”.

However, the challenge this represents also presents a number of opportunities to promote health, both short and long-term. These include reducing air pollution, promoting active forms of transport, healthier food systems, and working towards a fairer, more equal economy and society.

The health community has both a mandate and an interest in calling for the social, political and economic actions required to mitigate and adapt to environmental change.

The health community is already helping to lead the way. But we can do much more.

Judith Anderson on the CPA executive, has been a longstanding member of Medact and is chairing a parallel session on Friday afternoon on Climate Change, Human Psychology and Mental Health at which Sally Weintrobe is one of the speakers (psychoanalyst and editor of Engaging with Climate Change: Psychoanalytic and Interdisciplinary Perspectives). Also speaking are psychiatrists Hugh Grant-Peterkin and Lisa Page